Posted 3 years ago on Feb. 27, 2013, 7:40 p.m. EST by PeterKropotkin
(1050)
from Oakland, CA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

By Glenn Ford

The Obama administration has been very skillful in framing itself as the good guy in the latest looming fiscal disaster, this time under the heading of “sequestration.” On Friday, across-the-board cuts of $85 billion are set to go into effect, wreaking havoc on most government operations. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and what’s left of welfare are not directly affected, but these so-called “entitlement” programs have, in fact, always been the primary targets of this cascade of manufactured crises. Disaster capitalism is manifesting itself as disaster governance, and President Obama is fully complicit in the corporate-imposed charade. Indeed, Obama is most culpable for infecting the nation with austerity fever.

It was Obama who swallowed whole the corporate argument, previously championed by Republicans, that the national debt was Crisis Number One and that entitlement programs were the root cause. From the moment in January of 2009 when Obama served notice that Social Security and all other entitlements would be put on the chopping block, he became the chief mover and shaker for so-called entitlement reform. He created the model for austerity, through his Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction commission. It was Simpson-Bowles that provided the basis for the massive cuts offered by President Obama in 2011. When the Republicans balked at even a modest tax increase for the rich, it was the White House National Economic Council Director, the corporate deal-maker Gene Sperling, who came up with the sequestration scheme, which was timed to explode right after the 2012 elections. The idea was to make every popular constituency in the country scream – and accept the inevitability of massive entitlement cuts.

Let me repeat: Sequestration was Obama’s idea. So-called entitlement reform is Obama doctrine. Austerity was embedded in the Democratic Party’s agenda under President Obama. More than any other individual, it was Barack Obama who engineered the current disaster scenario. These waves of austerity crises were not inevitable, but they are the inevitable result of President Obama’s calculated statements and actions since Election Day 2008. The Republicans are his partners, not his opponents. The closest thing he has to an opposition – at least on paper – is the Congressional Progressive Caucus, whose two co-chairs introduced a bill that would turn the austerity juggernaut on its head. It’s called the Balancing Act of 2013, and would replace all of the sequestration cuts with new revenues, and then add a $276 billion stimulus to the economy. Needless to say, the progressive bill will get nowhere, not just because of Republican opposition, but because the top Democrat, Barack Obama, wants to go down in history as the smart austerity president. Just as he said he wasn’t opposed to wars, but only to dumb wars – which is why he has built tens of thousands of the smartest drones and smartest bombs ever devised by man. He’s outsmarting what passes for a Left in the United States at every turn. They cheer him as he effectively consummates his grand bargain with the GOP, in a cacophony of manufactured crises, exhausting what little opposition remains. That’s why we at BAR call him the more effective evil.

I don't disagree with your assertion. Best estimates I've seen indicate we're running about 9-10% inflation per annum for the past several years. Bad as that is, however, it pales in comparison to what's on the way...

You know shooz, I've got a few minutes and was about to click your link. But you just can't help yourself, can you? Someone doesn't toe your line must be ALEC eh? What about principled disagreement? I'll look at your link shooz. But, you're wrong to mistake principles and honest differences of opinion as adversarial.

What's cogent and topical? That a de facto tyranny exists in Detroit. In Michigan. The article is a bit light for anyone not following the subject. But what you describe, an orchestrated white flight creating essentially apartheid -- why do you think I'm willing to fight fire with fire? Detroit is a fucking training ground. For them and us. I get it, but you don't understand.

Yep Obummer came up with the sequestration bill - and both dems and reps passed it.

Knowing that the sequestration was meant to force the dems and reps into working together to come up with a bipartisan spending/budget bill. One that addressed raising taxes and closing loopholes on corpoRATions and on wealthy individuals. One that left tax breaks in place for the needy one that did not touch social security.

This was done with the express reason of forcing the reps/corpoRATists in office to drop their roadblocks to economic responsibility. As it is they who have stood in the way this whole time.